April is almost over and I nearly forgot it was National Poetry Month!
I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. Joyce Kilmer
I looked up at this gnarled but lovely twisty eucalyptus tree trunk and ran my fingers down her bark/skin. It was roughly textured but felt solid and safe. Notice all the nooks and crannies to shelter birds and other living creatures.
I had to have a tiny little thing — not cancer this time — removed from my bottom lip. I can’t pronounce nor even remember what my doc called it, but it was easily, albeit painfully, removed.
As she tossed me an icepack, she said the craziest thing!
She told me to stop at the store on my way home and buy a fresh pineapple.
What?
Not only was my doc prescribing pineapple to eat, but to dab on my lip!
Apparently this is due to the fact that pineapples contain bromelain, an enzyme found in pineapple that’s thought to reduce swelling and inflammation, and hasten healing.
By the way, it actually worked!
Like I always do, I did a little research and learned there’s a lot you can do with all parts of a pineapple.
Of course you can try to grow them when you cut off the tops and I did that, too. Hopefully, I’ll have some little pineapples in a couple of years.
Try this recipe, it sounds yummy!
Pineapple Water ✲ Clean and peel one pineapple. Save the fruit for another time. ✲ In a large saucepan combine the skins and core with a cinnamon stick, a few cloves, and a decent sized chunk of peeled ginger. ✲ Cover with eight cups water and bring to a boil. ✲ Lower the heat and simmer for forty minutes. Turn off the heat and cool. ✲ Strain the water, discard the pineapple skins and spices. ✲ Pour the water in a container, refrigerate, and enjoy.
P.S. It’s highly diuretic, and bromelain may interact with several medications including anticoagulants and antibiotics. It’s always best to consult a medical doctor before ingesting any part of a pineapple.
Pareidolia: (n.) the instinct to seek familiar forms in disordered images like clouds or constellations; the perception of random stimulus as significant.
Pareidolia is a type of apophenia, to see patterns in random data.
Pareidolia is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one sees an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none, like the Rorschach inkblot test.
Studies have shown that facial features aren’t the only thing that we see when we come across an illusory face. It was found that we also see age, emotion, and gender – and strangely enough the vast majority of these funny faces are perceived as male faces, like the man in the moon.
I’m sure my neuroscientist DIL would have a much more scientific and intelligent explanation than I do, but I find it fascinating to discover faces or animals in clouds or common objects.
I attended the very first Earth Day celebration in 1970 at Balboa Park in San Diego with a crowd of about 70,000 people. It was Wednesday, the weather was beautiful, about 68 degrees, and I must have skipped school that Wednesday.
I can’t remember who I went with or how I got there but I do recall walking from booth to booth looking for free stuff and having an unpleasant encounter with a San Diego cop, probably about being truant.
There is a vague recollection that I swore at him and he got all puffed up and intimidating, threatening to call my dad until I told him to go ahead, my dad was a lawyer…and then he walked away. Miss you, Daddy, and thank you!
Gaia, known as the mother goddess, was the personification of Earth. She’s described as a caring and nurturing mother figure to all of her children, plants, and other living creatures on this planet.
We’re all children of Gaia, Earth Mother, no matter where we live.
Here’s a photo of boats from my little slice of earth at Agua Hedionda Lagoon, along with a lone paddleboarder.
I walked along a little trail high above the water and this view seemed like it could be anywhere in the world, but it’s right here in SoCal.
Take care of Mother Earth and she’ll take care of you!
This intense cosmic energy is not only messing with my sleep, but I was having strange battery issues with my laptop computer so I went back to the Apple store where I had once met Al Gore (yes, VICE PRESIDENT Al Gore) and asked the Genius Bar tech to perform a diagnostic check. The tech didn’t do much but it’s all better, so who really knew what caused the problem, whether it was a hardware glitch or a solar flare, or other planetary influences. The good thing is that it’s back to working perfectly.
There were lots of traffic accidents and horrible drivers everywhere yesterday. The freeway was completely shut down for hours because of an insane situation with a woman who allegedly vandalized a vehicle and carjacked a Lyft. She led the police on a short chase but finally, peacefully, surrendered to police after a prolonged standoff on Interstate 5. It looked like WW3 with all of the military-like Special Weapons and Tactics Team surrounding the vehicle. The woman was taken into custody on suspicion of felony vandalism, brandishing a weapon in a threatening manner, assault with a deadly weapon, carjacking, resisting arrest, and felony evasion of police.
That’s way too much negative energy for ME to deal with and I’m so glad I wasn’t stuck for hours on the freeway. I felt lucky that I had made a spontaneous last minute decision to take an alternate route home. I heard all the sirens though, but had assumed it was simply another accident.
Time to take a deep breath, stay home, work in the garden, listen to the birds, and read a poem or two while cultivating some zen as well as my veggies.
How I Go To The Woods by Mary Oliver
Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.
I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.
If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.
From my native garden in the front yard, where we planted everything but a lawn. We have white and purple sages, buckwheat, coffeeberry, lemonade berry, ceanothus, and a sprawling wild Rock Rose.
I loved the way the sun was shining on these hot pink blooms. No filter, nothing but natural beauty.
Rock Rose
The flower is used to make medicine and is commonly used in Bach flower remedies. Rock Rose is purported to treat panic, stress, extreme fright or fear, and anxiety; and for promoting calmness and relaxation.
The oleo-resin obtained from the leaves and stems is used as a commercial food flavoring in baked goods, ice cream, and chewing gum.
Leaves, flowers, and stems can all be harvested and used to make tea. I haven’t tried it yet, but I plan to do it soon.
The upcoming solar eclipse on April 19-20 holds a significant amount of energy that can bring about profound changes in our lives.
The Ningaloo Eclipse April 20 is an extraordinary and rare hybrid solar eclipse that takes its name from an Aboriginal word. The path of totality passes over North West Cape, a remote peninsula of Western Australia.
On April 20, the shadow of the moon will graze the tip of the state in a twenty-five mile wide track as it travels over one of the most beautiful parts of the world – the Ningaloo region near Exmouth.
Exmouth is the only town within the line of totality making it one of the only places on earth to experience a total solar eclipse, one of nature’s most phenomenal occurrences.
The Aries new moon solar eclipse is a hybrid between an annular eclipse, where you can see a ring of fire around the sun, and a total eclipse, where the sun is completely blocked.
Hybrid eclipses are incredibly rare and can suggest a transition or perhaps a shift between two worlds.
Just as the eclipse moves from total to annular, perhaps something in our lives is preparing to shift too.
Claim the messages sent during this timeframe, as they are usually crucial to our spiritual and physical evolution.
It’s a good time to meditate on the Taoist concept of the flow state (Wu Wei), and examine what is in or out of alignment in our journey.
In addition to this blast of cosmic energy, Mercury retrograde occurs between April 21 and May 14 in my sign of Taurus.
“That which offers no resistance overcomes the hardest substances. That which offers no resistance can enter where there is no space. Few in the world can comprehend the teachings without words, or understand the value of non-action.” Lao Tzu, Tao Te Chin
This recipe is everything, and SO easy. Vegan, of course.
The secret to success is freezing the tofu before cooking. Here’s what to do. Drain the tofu, cut into squares, place on a plastic cutting board, and freeze.
Don’t be worried if the tofu changes color; it’s all good, and the color change means the texture of the tofu will be chewier and even more delicious.
When it’s nice and frozen (took a couple hours for me) place in a bag with some cornstarch and shake.
Add three tablespoons of oil to a pan and heat until shimmering. I like avocado oil.
Be patient and don’t check on the crispy progress too soon. You’ll know the tofu is ready to turn when it releases easily from the pan.
You could also bake in a 350 degree oven or place in an air fryer, but this time I used the cooktop ‘cos it was quicker.
When it’s brown and crispy on both sides, sprinkle with a little cracked pepper, and serve.
For my yummy Dipping Sauce, mix 1/3 cup vegan mayo with a tablespoon of Sriracha. Add a little chopped cilantro. This sauce is very similar in taste to the Japanese mayo at sushi restaurants.
It’s seriously SO full of flavor, I could almost eat an entire block of tofu. Not kidding.
When I was in college, we lived across the street from a wild place, an abandoned and untended avocado grove blanketed with nasturtiums. Their long tendrils would wind up and around the gnarled trunks.
After school, my friends and I would sit under the trees and pick tiny avocados from the low hanging branches and gorge on them until we were full, and then we’d lie back in the pillowy nasturtium leaves and pretend we were forest fairies.
We’d sometimes weave orange and yellow tiaras through our hair, and always pick a bouquet to bring home.
I love their tangy but sweet fragrance and often add the flowers to salads, but only the ones from my garden that I’m sure are pesticide-free.
All the rain birthed my own enchanted nasturtium forest this year.
Yesterday I drove to an appointment for a physical therapy session to work on my knee, the one with the torn meniscus. Since I hate parking garages with low, oppressive ceilings, I chose to park a block or so away.
The sky was blue, the sun was out, and I briskly walked to my destination. Restaurants were full of happy people enjoying balmy weather on the last day of spring break.
I crossed the street and noticed a gnome-like, wizened, obviously homeless guy on a bench.
Exactly as if he had been watching and waiting for me, he stood up and blocked my path when I approached. He held out a pen and asked me if he could write his name on my body.
(Yes, for a nanosecond, I imagined he was holding a knife. Adrenalin production ramped up in my body, but it was just a pen.)
I shook my head and firmly replied, “No, you CANNOT!”
He said, “Why not? Because then you’d belong to me.”
This wasn’t a pleasant encounter — his demeanor was filled with contempt. With those few words, the tone he conveyed was sarcastic, sardonic, mocking, even derisive.
I continued to walk, shook my head at the oddness of his words. Many times, I’ve been asked for money by street people, but this was out of the ordinary for sure.
Instead of “homeless”, advocates suggest the use of language like unhoused or unsheltered to describe people “experiencing homelessness” to imply a worldview that sees homelessness as a structural and societal failing, not a personal problem.
Whatever language one uses, we have a large population here, and I think our city has a fairly responsive and compassionate approach to this crisis. Not great, but better than their past one-dimensional militant approach.
About an hour later, I retraced my steps as I made my way back to my car. The little man was still there, perched on the same bench. This time I noticed that his feet didn’t touch the ground, which means he was even shorter than my five feet. I didn’t feel like I needed to take any effort to avoid him.
This bench was positioned in the middle of the sidewalk and near the intersection at the stoplight where I needed to cross the street.
As I walked by, he cackled and stuck his foot out as if to trip me. I circumvented this potential ill-mannered assault as he called out to me with an abundance of animosity, “Hey curly!”.
Of course I didn’t respond and made it safely back to my car, but I was curious about these two slightly peculiar encounters in an otherwise completely normal day.
As I pondered the deeper meaning of what occurred, it reminded me of a Fellini film; the blending of fantasy and baroque images with raw earthiness — opening a portal to what lives beneath the surface of seeming normalcy.
What did the angry man represent? Why me? Why did he say I would be his if he wrote his name on me? There was an essence of something shadowy and devious and outlier about him; a glimpse into a version of a world I don’t inhabit.
How utterly strange and slightly unsettling, like I was actually IN an art film or an alternate reality or another dimension.
The only way I can describe it is how Caryn James in an old newspaper article described a Fellini film…”that moment when you walk headlong into a scene so strange you think you’re hallucinating; then it turns out to be real.
What I know for sure is that it was borderline creepy and I was SO glad to go home. To be home. There’s no place like home.
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 